As 2024 winds down, Alma celebrates yet another year of success. To accomplish this feat, Ex Libris™, part of Clarivate™, continues to work in close collaboration with its customer community to ensure that Alma remains the most effective library services platform and helps libraries achieve greater efficiency.
Over the course of the past twelve months customers have contributed to and benefited from four feature and eight analytics releases. While there are more than 150 improvements across key areas of Alma – including 58 Idea Exchange and 7 CERV (NERS) customer voted on enhancements – some of the more groundbreaking developments:
- Launched a preview of the AI Metadata Assistant to help catalogers save time
- Advanced Linked Open Data by supporting the use of BIBFRAME records
- Created a new Consortia Dashboard to improve collaboration and administration
- Designed intuitive interfaces and streamlined workflows for Title Search and Manage Patron Services
- Enhanced support for Open Access initiatives and compliance through improved workflows
These developments are just a glimpse of the overall 2024 success, as the Alma community also continues to expand. There are now more than 2,700 customers worldwide, spanning libraries of all types and sizes, with more than 1,000 being in participating consortia.
“Our customers continue to be instrumental in driving significant enhancements for Alma,” said Dana Moshkovits, Senior Director of Product Management, at Ex Libris. “Their involvement has been central to its development since the beginning and will continue to steer it forward as we focus on delivering libraries more value through innovation.”
A consistent development approach and reliable release schedule are two characteristics of what customers come to expect with Alma. Alma features an 18-month community-driven published roadmap, which will be again updated in early 2025 to reflect developments across 2025 and 2026. This will include further work on the Alma UX and UI, the AI Metadata Assistant, insights, and many more enhancements across Alma.
Contact us to learn more about the recent and planned improvements to Alma, discover what it means to be part of the Alma community, and why Alma is the right choice to prepare your library for the future.
